Maureen O’Hara
Loss and Tears of Joy – Headlined on OpEdNews.com Sun 1/3/16
Every time we drop the ball on the old year, the old Christmas tree, old fashions & devices, old ways of thinking, and the grand old party, we resolve to balance life’s comedies and tragedies — for the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die – maybe.
Free Will Grand Juries kill any indictment of uniformed killers in Baltimore and Cleveland; A freak storm kills frigid North Pole by fifty degrees and Mississippi tributaries become killer rivers. Maybe, whoever troubles his own planet, will inherit the wind.
And yet, while The Fourth Estate drowns itself fishing for ratings in a political cesspool, NASA rediscovers Pluto, more than 200 nations reach first Global Climate Change agreement and Same Sex Marriage is proclaimed a supreme American right.
Yes, lies abound even in the search for truth about life as we know it, knocking at the door of extinction. Still it’s not Einstein’s bees, but Corporatism insuring death by a thousand cuts for earth and earthlings: Bard Medical knowingly replaced bad Recovery filter spikes with the bad G2 Series — and Americans died. Bard’s FDA approved filter spikes fail patients so often, Stanford Health Care, Dr. William T. Kuo specializes in removing them.
Resolved: choose carefully in whom we entrust our parents, children & planet; reject vague vulgarities as presidential candidate policy statements; admit all our institutions are only as humane as the humans running them.
Beyond the rapture of rupturing constitutional truth and electoral process to make a point, our Golden Rule remnants remain infrastructure of our survival. Happily, most Americans are not supremely racist nor fearfully duped – but beware, like BP Gulf Spill, SoCal Methane Gas leaks from one year to the next.
Although guns, bullies and all forms of violence rob us of Parisian lives, the pen remains mightier than the ISIL, and shooting Cecil the lion, reveals our top of the food chain position is as fragile as a two-year-old Syrian refugee’s body washed ashore.
Yet, each year-end brings a new year to count our blessings for having shared earth with people like Natalie Cole, Maureen O’Hara, Anne Meara and Elizabeth Fort Hood Hug Lady Laird.
Perhaps a Syrian refugee holding his sleeping daughter in his arms while selling pens is needed beacon: This father used donations received through social media to start three businesses, employ sixteen Syrian refugees and send $25,000 to his family still trapped in Syria.
Resolved: Giving is our best way out of the fog of war.
From womb to tomb, life is a balancing act between half-full or half-empty; Agony and Ecstasy — Yogi Barra, Leonard Nimoy, Mario Cuomo, Fred Thompson, Robert Loggia, the beautiful mind of John Ford Dash, B. B. King, The Godfather’s Mo Green, West Wing’s Roger Reese, Rod Taylor and Christopher Lee.
Especially painful for me: the Braveheart of a Titanic composer, James Horner, America’s soulmate Julian Bond, my Zhivago look-a-like Omar Sharif and my only sports hero, basketball’s Laura Hiram.
Gone too, Cronkite’s principled news media, replaced by extreme measures:
- Religious freedom permits Mosque vandalism
- NRA Open Carry gun lies we tell ourselves
- Environment destroying corporations intimidating participation at Paris Climate Change Summit
- Oil prices so low Congress ends ban on oil exports, enabling gas price hikes for constituents
- Conspiracy or Coincidence: Electric streetcars disappeared by Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, GM and Mack Truck
I bow to the great Dames, Maggie Smith & Judi Dench and all living examples of human achievement — Meryl Streep, Oprah, Julianne Moore’s Still Alice, Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Jerry Stiller and police officers who buy hot pink car seats.
My favorite 2015 moments: Aretha Franklin moving both King and President to tears of joy at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Obama finally in the driver’s seat of gun safety and, a 1963 Chevy Corvette Stingray!
Resolved: Happy New Year America, if you can keep it.
It’s about the First Woman to Chair — Headlined by OpEdNews 11/2/15
When the starting gate for minorities and goal posts for women are relics of second class citizenship, the question isn’t who’s on first, but are we still defining Exceptionalism with the 1790 Naturalization Act, excluding American Indians, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks and Asians from American citizenship – or just electing chair covers who prefer the 1870 Naturalization Act, which allowed BlackLivesMatter, but still not other alien immigrants, and no legal status given non-white women?
It’s all about that.
It’s about the race not always going to the swift, but the slick. Is it about candidates unable to give us the simplicity of black and white solutions — or that conflicts of interests are born when corporate wealth culls the Middle Class?
Is it just about being first, when first is about job titles, income, neighborhood, family structure or spouse? No, it’s about testing where poverty starts and mass incarceration ends.
Is Congress about declaring the United States wants only citizens who can care for themselves without the assistance of others — denying American citizenship to the uneducated, mentally ill and poor – or is it about Race and Nationality discrimination being ensconced in American law in 1898, thriving in 2016 Conservative politics?
Are we still about Immigration and Naturalization Service officials using the 1911 Dictionary of Races or Peoples to determine a person’s qualifications to immigrate to The Land of the Free? If so, it’s about non-white women need not apply.
Is it about the dots connecting our 1920s Supreme Court upholding a national racist immigration policy and 2010 Citizens United Supremes selling out our electoral process?
Isn’t it about time Congress and the laws of the land reject the neglect of equal citizenship for the female half of our population, instead of holding fast to laws set in 1700’s stone restricting gender equality for women of every hue and a descent minimum wage for all Americans?
Is it about fearing equal economic opportunity, equal pay for equal work, equal credit opportunities, equal healthcare services and maternity leave – or about honoring all the First Women to Chair, by ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment?
It’s about American Revolutionary War Veteran Mary Ludwig Hays, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, English Channel flyer Harriet Quimby, and Orchestral Conductor Mary Davenport-Engberg.
It’s about peace loving Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, whose Vietnam War protests, had they been heeded, could have spared Phan Thị Kim Phúc, life changing napalm burns. It’s about that.
It’s not only about Susan Brownell Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone, but Alice Paul who introduced the first Equal Rights Amendment in Congress.
It wasn’t just Amelia Earhart, but Pacific Ocean Betty Miller, Eileen Collins, and first cabinet chair, Frances Perkins. It’s about Seventh Veil Oscar winner Muriel Box, first Arizona Senate Majority Leader Sandra Day O’Connor and Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller.
It’s about all the Rosie the Riveter(s)!
Poet Laureate Mona Jane Van Duyn, Janet Reno, Madeleine Albright, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer and potential First Chair of the Land, Hillary Clinton prove it’s about diplomacy, The Artistic Edge and Justice for All.
It’s about excellence over Exceptionalism: What’s My Line’s Arlene Francis, Barbra Streisand, Kathryn Bigelow, the lionesses of Broadway Julie Taymor, Lisa Kron & Jeanine Tesori and Cuba to Florida swimmer, Diana Nyad.
It’s not about Brandi Chastain’s shirt, but the U. S. Women’s Soccer Team at the White House, because equal achievement should equal, equal citizenship.
It’s about my childhood crushes, Maureen O’Hara & Annette Funicello; my friendship with Mercedes McCambridge; Patrick Hayes introducing me to Zelda Fichandler back when divorced women lost credit cards and credit standing they shared when married.
Finally, it’s about all those we’ve called The Help: Hattie McDaniel, Aretha Franklin, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Oprah Winfrey, the uncaged Inaugural Poet Maya Angelou, the incomparable Viola Davis and the Resource Officer assaulted Spring Valley High School girl. Yes, it’s about that.
It’s about legally acknowledging the equality of all mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and aunts because, it’s about time – it’s about them! 
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